Rosanne Cash: Understated

Rosanne Cash had a few laughs with her husband, John Leventhal, Friday on the stage of the Harris Theater, mostly over how to tune a guitar.

It seemed like a setup: What? They couldn't afford a guitar tech? How about bringing along an extra guitar or two?

The quarreling couple's lighthearted repartee not only enhanced the air of intimacy, but provided a necessary balance to a 95-minute, 19-song performance brimming with longing, heartache and death.

Cash will always be referred to as the daughter of a legend, Johnny Cash. But her 30-year career is also a work of art, marked by her acutely detailed songwriting.

On Friday, however, nearly half the concert was devoted to a list of songs her father gave her when she was 18, mostly country classics that served as her introduction to a deeper, darker world than the one she was experiencing on American pop radio, circa 1973.

Accompanied by Leventhal's sparse, trebly guitar playing, Cash played curator rather than diva. Her subtle, nuanced performances put the image-rich stories center stage. Clearly, her mission was to get out of the way of these songs, to present them with as little window dressing as possible. At times, she could've stood to be a touch more assertive, but mostly her instincts were correct.

On "Long Black Veil," she created minimalist aural cinema by keeping the focus squarely on the voice-from-the-grave narrative. She played Bob Dylan's "Girl From the North Country" with a stately, Elizabethan restraint, allowing the song's innate beauty to emerge. And she brought out the alternately sultry and queasy twists and turns of Bobby Gentry's "Ode to Billy Joe" by keeping things lightly simmered, just like the matter-of-fact dinner-table conversation in the lyrics.

The concert also demonstrated that Cash isn't finished growing as an artist. She always had a small but pretty voice.

Now she is taking it places that it couldn't go in the '80s, when she was a country hit-maker. It's a voice that sneaks up on you, especially when she started stretching notes during an a cappella passage in "Radio Operator," a song she wrote about her parents' courtship.

She two-stepped through "Tennessee Flat Top Box," a rare upbeat number on this night, and Leventhal's percussive guitar playing brought a rock intensity to her devastating "Dreams Are Not My Home." But mostly, Cash and Leventhal kept things lean and understated. This is a couple who may not know how to tune a guitar efficiently, but they sure don't waste any time or notes finding the heart of a song.